


The Better Part

by Cheloya



Category: xxxHoLic
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-03
Updated: 2017-05-03
Packaged: 2018-10-27 08:33:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 716
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10805547
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cheloya/pseuds/Cheloya
Summary: Imported snippet from 2008. Watanuki wakes shouting at the ceiling.





	The Better Part

The dream resolved after a few blurred moments, like settling spectacles over his nose: a clear, crisp night, sakura bent low with the weight of their blossoms, and the scent of Haruka-san’s spiced cigarettes curling slowly around a crescent moon. The exorcist rested with his back against the wall of the house, one knee bent, the hand with the cigarette dangling over his lap.  
  
“You’ll ash on your robe,” said Watanuki gently, and tempered it further: “Haruka-san.”  
  
The older man’s eyes slid toward him, a warm and watchful amber, and Haruka shifted so that he was merely in danger of ashing on the polished wood beside him. “Watanuki Kimihiro,” he greeted, managing to work a hint of affection into otherwise even words - a skill that Doumeki had yet to master. “Once more you are fighting battles best left unfought.”  
  
He patted the space beside him, and Watanuki settled there, eyes on his hands in absent curiosity. If he thought about it, he could feel the bandages wrapped around them in the waking world, but here they were all but invisible. Haruka’s soft sound of amusement drew his attention, and the knowing expression on the man’s face made Watanuki colour slightly, made him look away.  
  
“There are others better suited to treating your body’s hurts. I am more sensitive to the pain in your heart.”  
  
Watanuki shifted, eyes on his toes, brushing the grass. “Today,” he began, but that was as far as he could go. He stared at his palms and tried not to think of the damage to his fingers, tried not to wonder whether Doumeki would still be able to shoot a bow, or even hold a pencil. He swallowed around the lump in his throat.  
  
“Today, my grandson traded away more of my fine sake collection,” Haruka sighed, neatly summarising his knowledge of the day’s events, preventing Watanuki from needing to find the words. “Will he have any left for his coming of age, I wonder?”  
  
Watanuki kept the rather more pressing question of whether Doumeki would live to see his twentieth birthday to himself, but he couldn’t help the way that the guilt and the sorrow welled up in his throat, couldn’t help clenching his fists and feeling the distant echo of pain from the his bandaged hands in the waking world.  
  
Haruka inhaled, deep and slow, drawing the spicy smoke into his lungs and expelling it slowly as he spoke. It seemed to make his voice clearer rather than muffle the sound, and when he pulled the cigarette away to look at it, there was not much left. “Still, as long as he can celebrate it with the person most important to him, I don’t suppose it matters what he drinks.”  
  
There were a lot of things to say to that, none of them good enough, few of them true, no matter how vehemently they left his lips. Watanuki took a deep and shuddering breath, and said, “Did you have a special food, Haruka-san? That you shared with—” Couldn’t say it. Not yet. “—Doumeki?”  
  
Haruka’s hand touched the back of his head, fingers gently curling. “I have shared all that I was destined to share with my grandson,” he said. “What _you_ share is important for him, now.”  
  
Watanuki bowed his head briefly, considering not what they did share, but the few things that they didn’t – the few things that Doumeki had not parted with already, just to keep him some semblance of whole. “I hope Doumeki-san won’t mind if I contribute,” he began, hesitantly, and Haruka chuckled, drew breath through his cigarette, and rolled the smoking filter between his fingers.  
  
“My daughter has always been very sensible, and a terrible cook,” he said with great fondness, beginning to fade. “I am sure she will simply be glad that Shizuka has someone to keep him properly nourished when he takes over the temple.”  
  
-  
  
Watanuki woke shouting at his ceiling, and was later forced to apologise for waking Mokona and Mugetsu with the liberal application of inarizushi and hard liquor. Yuuko received her own earful (“YOU WEREN’T EVEN IN THE HOUSE AT THE TIME!”), but Doumeki’s participation in the meal went oddly unremarked-upon – at least until Yuuko began remarking on the lack of remark, and everything went downhill from there rather quickly.


End file.
